


Correspondence

by simply_aly



Category: Make It or Break It
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-17
Updated: 2013-08-19
Packaged: 2017-12-23 19:07:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/930028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/simply_aly/pseuds/simply_aly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Sasha leaves, Payson writes him letters in the hopes of getting him to come back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Last

She writes him letters.   
  
At first, the letters are formal and she just politely asks him to come back. She doesn’t broach the subject of the kiss or the repercussions, doesn’t even want to talk about it.   
  
When those first two letters come back, _return to sender_ , she tears them up and throws them away. She doesn’t write for two weeks.   
  
Then, after the anger wears off, she takes a different approach. She tells him that what happened was a mistake, that it didn’t mean anything, and that she’s perfectly fine going back to the way things were. She makes all sorts of crazy promises on the condition that he come back to train her.   
  
Three letters, all _return to sender_.   
  
After the third letter comes back, she sighs and writes a completely new kind of letter.   
  
This one is more personal. She doesn’t ask him to come back again, she just writes. She tells him about her family, her friends, her new coach, and even how she feels about what happened between them. She tells him things she wouldn’t tell anyone else because she assumes the letter will come back, _return to sender_ , just like all of the others…but it doesn’t.   
  
She continues this for more than three months, a part of her taking it as a sign that he’s weakening. But when nothing changes, she sends one last letter.   
  
( _I’m done_ , she writes. _It’s over_.)   
  
She doesn’t care about gymnastics; she doesn’t care about making the World Team. None of it matters if he isn’t there with her.


	2. The First

His first thought upon receiving her letter is spoken aloud to his pile of mail. “How did she get my address?” And a part of him desperately wishes to open the letter and see what information is contained, but after examining the outside, he doesn’t give it another thought. The letter, while plainly from Payson Keeler, is addressed to Mr. Belov, and he refuses to be addressed in such a way by her.  
  
He promptly sends the letter back to her, along with the one that arrives the next week.  
  
Almost a month passes before the third letter arrives. It, like the others, is addressed to Mr. Belov, but it’s handwritten, not typed, like the others were.  
  
That letter sits unopened on his dining room table for two days before he returns it, only to receive another. He sends that one, and the one after it back with only a brief moment of hesitation. He vows to send back every letter she writes. He convinces himself that she’s better off—that they’re all better off—with him gone. He has not helped her—them. He’s only been a hindrance. Going back will surely be more of the same. Of course, he breaks the first vow a week later when a letter—addressed to Sasha Belov—arrives. And that makes all the difference.  
  
The letter reads like a diary or a very personal conversation, and he almost writes back in kind, but he refuses to break that vow too. She’s better off, he insists, if he’s far away from her.  
  
Fourteen more letters, all very personal in nature, arrive over the next three months. He opens each one, and images what he would reply, but he never actually puts pen to paper.  
  
The last letter—in which she promises to leave him alone and stop writing him—he cannot ignore, however, for she tells him she’s done with gymnastics. And he realizes, maybe for the first time, how he should have talked with her, at least once, before dropping out of her life completely. He sighs, but hurriedly grabs pen and paper.  
  
( _I’ll not train you_ , he writes, _but we should talk._ )  
  
In the end, he decides that what is best for her might simply be to have someone unconditionally believing in her, and she seems to believe that to be him. For this reason, and this reason only, he’ll return.


End file.
